It’s five in the morning, it’s time to go out, say Yin Yan and Max, who run around the house in a wild competition and fall like a storm on my bed, clearly indicating that it’s time to get up. With their fluffy tails raised and a light gait, mother and child wait for the outer door to open and rush inside to sniff the air and dig in the dirt.

Ecuador 2025-2030

Max lurks in ambush, tailless black lizards, survivors of other hunts, hiding among the leaves of veranera disinfected with cochineal; Some males, beautiful blue-winged flies, circle in circles, and I chase them with my applause to end their ephemeral lives in my arms. The light quickly conquers the space in the cloudy sky, which hides in its bowels a huge plane that can be heard, but not seen.

To be wrong is not political

I sit down to enjoy the fresh air after a hot night. In the midst of this bucolic dawn and seemingly far from the anxiety we are experiencing, a concern arises. What does this have to do with the fact that these realities are connected to those other realities of death, blood and terror that we live. We must escape from problems to enjoy life, or we must include beauty and wonder in all that exists as part of the deep formation of all human beings and learn to respect, love and protect life, all life, including our own.

Astral map

I like to think about old songs and psalms. “We emerge from the night and usher in the dawn, we welcome the joy of the light that comes to us resurrected and resurrection. Your hand brings fire to the dark earth, and the face of things rejoices in your presence; A man returns from sleep to his memory, goes to his work, rises early to his torments, you entrust him with the earth, and in the afternoon you find it with bread rich and bitter from sweat, and you rejoice, O God, and prolong in his little things, your mighty hands, and they are in the whole body, you both create, you both watch over things.”

(…) It will be that we have to include beauty and wonder in the face of everything that exists…

I let the words fall inside, I think about them from different angles, I feel how they bounce off me and the environment, I observe the plants. Now the cats came to lay at my feet and join in that sound silence, as Juan de la Cruz would say. The dog Cleo appears, huge, beautiful, like a hurricane full of life. Look, observe, lower your ears and join, calmly, without surprise, this collective encounter with the best of yourself, that God’s nest that every being is.

How to find meaning in the midst of so much turmoil.

If there is anyone whom humanity has as a reference for love and service beyond religions and beliefs, it is Jesus of Nazareth. And he suffered a horrible death at the hands of those he loved, cared for and protected. He also questioned and provoked. And that opened the way for them to follow, shaking hands with other hands that seek solidarity, respect, love and justice.

It will be that in every school, in every class, at the beginning of the year, students must be given something to look after, keep and love. A plant, an animal, being a godfather to a younger child at school and supporting him and taking care of him. Does one have to learn to love? And those who do not achieve this lose the year, even if they are very good academically. (OR)